Snow Storm by Robert Parker Read Free Book Online

and wondering where the fuck your incisors had gone.
Meanwhile, everyone went back to normal rules of engagement as the
music kicked off again and you were left to pick up the
pieces.
    Sunday night they decided
it was far safer just downing a few cans in front of Call of
Duty.
    The consequences of all
of this caught up some time around Monday morning and now he was
paying his debt to the party gods in full.
    As he headed
down the track the low hanging branches bounced off the tractors
cab jarring his nerves more than they needed. The flat expanse of
Baldoon opened up before him stretching off into the distance to be
interrupted by Wig Bay, going south to the Solway Firth. Beyond,
the Galloway Hills looking glacial at this time of year, having
received their seasonal dusting of snow, dominated the north and
east of the horizon.
    The airfield had been
built in the war, this being a suitably out of the way place to
hide trainees for the RAF’s finest. A good few pilots had ended
their days on those hills due to errors of judgement or just plain
bad luck. Air strips ran east to west and north to south
intersecting each other and the shells of what had once been the
base’s buildings lay like the skeletal remains of what must have
been a much more dramatic world.
    To the south of The
Machars, nearer the bottom of the peninsula at Garlieston they’d
built the Mulberry Harbour; a top secret floating construction used
for the D-Day landings and to the west at Knockienam Churchill and
Eisenhower met to formulate plans.
    It seemed strange to
think so much had gone on here. Now they didn’t even have a
railway. The creamery had gone years ago and farming had changed
altogether. Now the first thing many people did when they were old
enough was get out. There was a bit of a brain drain going on.
University or college in one of the big cities gave people a taste
for the bright lights and life in the big smoke. Many didn’t
return. It could get lonely if you stayed.
    Not that Andy
was worried. He was getting out. That was for sure. He was on a gap
year; that was all. A gap yaaah, Davie had called it in his best
scarf wearing toff accent before asking if he shouldn’t be
somewhere more exotic, volunteering and teaching people the error
of their ways, to which he’d replied he was.
    He’d done it to help the
old man out. He knew his dad would never ask him to stay, although
deep down he knew he wanted him to. As a way to cut down on his
guilt he’d decided to stick around for a year, remind the old boy
how nuts they drove each other, chill out and earn some coin before
heading for the bright lights, a place at uni and whatever the
future might hold. The truth was he had no clue what he wanted. He
just knew there was stuff out there. He wasn’t even sure what
stuff, just stuff you could get your teeth into; conversations that
didn’t involve cattle, cars or casual gossip.
    He rounded
the airfield and approached the entrance to the feed store. Some of
the old buildings had evolved over time into a mini industrial
complex that now contained a saw-mill and an agricultural supply
store along with some offices and warehouses. Recently the whole
lot had been bought over by a big company and it looked like
security had been beefed up as he drew up to a full-on looking
galvanised gate.
    Andy had an
uncomfortable feeling in his bones as he leaned down out of the cab
to speak to the only worker by the gate, a man he now realised had
a familiar toothless grin.

 
6

    The two officers from the
SCDEA had arrived around half past nine, conspicuously better
turned out than their Edinburgh CID counterparts. It looked like
they spent most of their wages in Urban Outfitters and probably the
rest being seen in the flashiest bars in the Merchant City. Burke
had always been more of a west end man where Glasgow was concerned,
although even that was filling up with hipsters these days by all
accounts.
    They could
have passed for students if you dropped